Egypt court orders release of Mubarak sons

CAIRO

 An Egyptian court on Thursday ordered the release of Gamal and Alaa Mubarak, the two sons of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, pending a final trial for corruption.

"Alaa and Gamal will be released Thursday evening since they are no longer involved in any other trials," Fareed al-Deeb, the defendants' lawyer, told The Anadolu Agency.

Thursday's court ruling came in response to an appeal by al-Deeb against his clients' ongoing detention pending a retrial on charges that they had embezzled 125 million Egyptian pounds (roughly $17 million) from state coffers when their father was still president.

Al-Deeb – who is also defending the elder Mubarak – had told reporters earlier that Mubarak's two sons were eligible for release after an appeals court ordered a retrial in the case, thus overturning four-year jail terms that the two men received in May of last year.

The release order for Gamal and Alaa Mubarak comes three days ahead of the fourth anniversary of a popular uprising that forced their father to step down after 30 years in power.

In the years leading up to the uprising, speculation had been rife that Mubarak was grooming Gamal to inherit the presidency.

The younger of Mubarak's two sons, Gamal had served as secretary-general of Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party in the years before the 2011 uprising.

Following the retrial order, the court also ordered the release of Mubarak, who had earlier been slapped with three years in jail in the same case.

The 86-year-old former autocrat remains in a Cairo military hospital where he spent most of a three-year detention period while awaiting multiple trials. 

Last spring, Mubarak and his two sons were found guilty of embezzling public funds allocated for the maintenance of presidential palaces and forging official documents.

The public funds were used to build, upgrade and furnish their own private properties between 2002 and 2011.

The three were ordered to pay back some 21 million Egyptian pounds (roughly $3 million) to the state and pay fines worth a total of 125.7 million Egyptian pounds (around $17 million).

In late 2012, Mubarak and his interior minister, Habib al-Adly, were both sentenced to 25 years in prison for their involvement in the murder of demonstrators during the 2011 uprising.

But another court later ordered a retrial after the former president's lawyers successfully appealed the sentence.

Last November, all defendants in the case were cleared of murder charges.